The Lancet Infectious Disease
May 2011  Volume 11  Number 5  Pages 333 – 416
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/issue/current

Editorial
The worldwide epidemic of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis
The Lancet Infectious Diseases

WHO estimates that a third of the world’s population is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. In 2009, there were almost 9 million new cases of tuberculosis and the disease killed almost 1 million people around the world. Since the discovery of the BCG vaccine, and the development of new antibiotics in the 1950s, the incidence of tuberculosis has fallen substantially. From 1995 to 2009, about 49 million people received treatment for the disease, 41 million of whom were cured, saving up to 6 million.